


Permanent Ink

by GythaOgg



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Artist Castiel (Supernatural), Baker Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester Proposes Marriage to Castiel, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Tattooed Castiel, Tattooed Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-01 19:20:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17249903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GythaOgg/pseuds/GythaOgg
Summary: Dean and Cas have been together for years, and they're very happy, but Dean has always said he's "not the marrying type". That's fine - Cas would be content to live with Dean forever. The thing is, Cas is a hopeless romantic, and he secretly wishes Dean would have a change of heart.Dean has known Cas was The One for years, and when he figured out that Cas really wants a wedding, he knew this was the one thing that would change Dean's lifelong opinion of marriage. He's had the ring for months, but he's been agonizing over the proposal. Dean wants it to be perfect; something personal to the two of them, intimate and romantic, but a grand gesture nonetheless. He’s come up with some great ideas, but discarded every one of them, so far.





	Permanent Ink

When Dean proposes to Castiel, they’ve been together for 4 years, and living together for 3. They’re happy, and in love, and so genuinely good together that it’s a little bit annoying, according to their friends.

The thing is, Dean’s never really been “the marrying type”. By the time he was 8 years old, he knew his parents had a bad relationship. When his mom died in a house fire later that year, his dad, John, felt horribly guilty that he’d never had the chance to make things right with her. He felt guilty enough, in fact, that he spent less and less time being a father to his boys, and more and more time drowning his sorrows in whiskey, until he finally died in a drunk driving accident. Dean was 13, and Sam was 9. After that, John’s best friend Bobby raised them. Bobby was a good man, and he loved the boys like his own, but his own wife had died long ago, so Dean never did get a great example of a healthy, happy marriage. By the time he was grown, Dean had decided marriage wasn’t for him.

Castiel has his own baggage about wedded bliss. His parents had a stable marriage on the surface, and he never heard them fight, but his father just disappeared one day. When Cas was 16, he came home from school one day, and all Dad’s stuff was gone. He never said goodbye, or contacted any of the kids again, and their mom ( _Naomi_ ) would never discuss it. All Cas knows is that his dad is alive, and that he chose to leave without a word to anyone. Since Naomi was vehemently unsupportive of Cas’s sexuality, his parents’ divorce was the least of Cas’s concerns in high school, but Castiel is a romantic at heart, and Chuck walking out on them didn’t sour Cas on the idea of marriage. If anything, it made him determined to have a healthy, honest, open relationship with whomever he was involved with, and he always dreamed of marrying the love of his life in front of all his friends and family.

When Cas and Dean fell in love, they did it gradually. They were friends for 3 years before they started dating, so they knew each other very well. They knew what to expect, and they tried to keep all their cards on the table at all times. It wasn’t perfect, but it was pretty damn close. Cas had always known Dean didn’t want to get married, and that was OK. He was happy with their relationship, and he was content to live with Dean for the rest of his life, wedding or no wedding.

So, they live their life. Cas is a pretty successful artist, doing mostly commissioned portraits, or murals for businesses. He also draws custom tattoo designs for people who love his particular style of art. His given name is James Novak, but professionally, he just goes by his middle name – Castiel, and it’s become quite a brand. His work has become so sought-after by tattoo clients, that it’s given Cas access to several exceptional tattoo artists, who are normally very expensive and have very long wait lists. As a result, Cas has a lot of ink on his body. They’re mostly his own designs, but they vary widely in style and subject. His first tattoo was a Pride paintbrush, wet with the colors of the rainbow, which he got at 18, and which got him thrown out of his mother’s house. He has classical pieces, like Michelangelo’s “David” covered in tiny tattoos, and a version of “The Awakening of Adonis” by Waterhouse ( _except with Dean as Adonis and Cas as Aphrodite_ ). He has tattoos relating to his name (his middle name was an homage to the Angel of Thursday): a pair of sparse, broken, oil-slick black wings on his back, and “Castiel” in Enochian on the back of his neck. He has a tattoo machine tattooing a cartoon heart. And he has a quote from Kurt Vonnegut ( _“And He went away.” – Cat’s Cradle_ ) on his left forearm.

That Vonnegut tattoo, in fact, is how Cas and Dean first met. Castiel had walked into Dean’s bakery, A Slice of Life, and Dean had complimented the quote on his arm. ( _Because it wouldn’t have been cool to blurt out, “Holy shit, you’re gorgeous!” . . . which is what he was thinking when Cas walked in the door that day_.) It turned out that Dean also had a tattoo from Cat’s Cradle ( _“Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die”_ ), in the same spot as Castiel’s. They got to talking about ink, and exchanged numbers, and their friendship grew quickly from there. Cas had been interested in Dean from day one, but assumed he was straight for the first year of their friendship. Once he learned that Dean was bi, he figured maybe Dean wasn’t attracted to him, since he’d never made a move in all that time. Then he started to pick up clues that Dean WAS interested, just too chicken to act. Eventually, Cas got tired of waiting for Dean to muster up the courage to ask him out, and one day, he just asked Dean if he could kiss him. Dean said yes, and the rest was history. “He whispered it. It was fucking adorable”, Cas always mentions, whenever they tell the story.

So they lived happily ever after. Except, Dean has always known Cas is The One for him, and when he finally figured out that Cas secretly wanted a wedding, he realized this was the one thing that could change Dean’s lifelong opinion of marriage. He bought the ring 4 months ago, but he’s been agonizing over the proposal. Dean wants it to be perfect; something personal to the two of them, intimate and romantic, but a grand gesture nonetheless. He’s come up with some great ideas, but discarded every one of them, so far.

Dean initially thought about proposing on the beach in Hawaii, but he has a horrible fear of flying, and driving to an island is obviously not an option. Then he thought, “I’m a baker, I’ll put the ring in a cupcake!” Unfortunately, a quick Pinterest search told him that was definitely NOT an original idea. He found a coffee mug with “Will you marry me?” painted in the bottom of the cup, but Cas is so groggy in the mornings, he may or may not even see the message, just the lack of coffee. He got the bright idea to have it written in the clouds with skywriting, but the quotes he got on it were about $3500, and that’s just . . . no. Dean considered staging a fake client consultation for a mural to cover up some graffiti, so when Cas showed up to give the client a quote, the graffiti would turn out to be “Will you marry me, Castiel?”. But who would let him deface their property like that? Their friends would, sure, but Cas would recognize all their addresses right away, so that idea was scrapped as well. Charlie’s suggestion was to buy Cas the guinea pigs he’s always wanted, and put little name collars on them . . . name one “Marry” and the other one “Me”. Dean had to admit, that was an adorable idea, except that Dean is allergic to cats, dogs, and guinea pigs (which is why they don’t have any pets).

By the time Dean finally settles on the right proposal idea, he’s been stressing and anxious for months, and Cas is starting to worry about him. Cas mentions his concern to Dean’s little brother Sam, who mentions it to Dean. Seizing the opportunity presented to him, Dean tells Cas that he’s going to take the day off and do something fun with Sam; try to shake off his recent bad mood. When he comes home later that night, he tells Cas that they ended up going to Sam’s favorite tattoo shop, and getting some new ink. Dean seems excited, but much more relaxed than he’s been lately, so Cas is relieved. Eager to see his boyfriend’s new tattoo, he pulls up Dean’s t-shirt sleeve. There, on his left deltoid, is a blue sky and a few fluffy clouds, with white skywriting, saying “Cas, will you marry me?”

**  
EPILOGUE:**

As a wedding present, Cas designed an update to Dean’s tattoo: below the blue sky was a grassy field, with two male figures sprawled on a picnic blanket, holding hands. Two years later, they added a little girl to the blanket. Two years after that, they added a tiny baby boy. And they really did live happily ever after.


End file.
